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Published Friday, July 03, 2009 in Sports

Home has been good to local football teams in recent years

By Tommy Camp

The Times-Herald

Home has indeed been home sweet home to our county's high school football teams over the last 10 years.

During the regular seasons of those 10 campaigns East Coweta has posted a .787 winning percentage (37-10) at Shoemake Stadium, Newnan has turned in a .749 (38-18) at Drake Stadium and Northgate a .569 (29-22) at Henry Seldon Field.

And if you extend that time period back one year for East Coweta it gets even better for the Indians, upping their percentage to .808 (42-10).

No wonder they like playing at home.

"We always enjoyed playing at home," said former Newnan coach Robert Herring on a number of occasions.

"It always helped when the kids could stay in their normal routine and playing in front of the home crowd was always an advantage."

Newnan hasn't lost more games at home than its won since the '96 team dropped four of five while EC has experienced that fate just once (2-3 in 2004) since 1987.

Newnan hasn't lost a home game in the regular season since 2006, those 14 straight wins before the home folks tying the school record set over 1991-93, and EC has dropped only three games at home in the last four years (two to Newnan in '06 and '08 and one to Starr's Mill in '05), going 16-3 in the process while wearing their distinctive purple home jersies.

Northgate's history only dates back to 1998, but the Vikings have enjoyed winning records at home in seven of their 11 seasons to date.

Since Newnan joined the Georgia High School Association in 1948, the Tigers-Cougars have posted winning records at home in 43 of those 60 seasons while breaking even on six other occasions.

So Newnan has had just 11 losing records at home in 60 years.

East Coweta has been playing since the late '60s and has enjoyed 29 winning records at home in those 40 years with one .500 season thrown in.

But since 1992 when EC moved into the state's largest classification, the Indians have posted 16 winning records at home in 17 campaigns.

East Coweta holds the county record for the longest regular season home winning streak, rattling off 18 straight wins at Shoemake Stadium over a four-season period from 1993 to '96.

The Indians lost to Upson-Lee in the final home game of the '92 season, but didn't drop another one in Sharpsburg until Griffin beat them in the sixth game of the '96 season.

Newnan's current 14-game home winning streak began against Paulding County in the fifth game of the '06 season and the Cougars will attempt to break their school record when they host Chapel Hill in the home opener in early September.

Northgate's longest home winning streak is six games. It began with a victory over Landmark Christian in the fifth game of the '99 season and extended through the win over Carver in game three of 2000.

Manchester ended the streak two weeks later, handing Northgate its only regular season loss in the season that ended in the state quarterfinals in Americus.

East Coweta also holds the county mark for consecutive regular season wins home and away, rolling up 28 in a row from 1999 to 2001.

The Indians lost the first two games in '99 then won their next eight regular season contests then posted back-to-back undefeated seasons in '00 and '01 becoming the only county team to ever record successive 10-0 seasons.

Parkview ended the string in the Georgia Dome in the 2002 season opener.

Newnan's longest-ever regular season winning streak home and away is the 18 in a row currently ongoing held by the 2007-08 teams and the '91-93 teams.

Northgate's longest is 10 in a row, the last six in 1999 and the first four in 2000.

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